Talk:Madrigali a 5 voci, libro primo (Carlo Gesualdo)

Three observations

• The order of succession of this book's madrigals seems to be inconsistent with at least two sources consulted. Bella Angioletta seems to be the last piece, rather than earlier on, as it appears to be here, as well as in the partitura of 1611.
• As far as the numbering is concerned, I am somewhat perplexed as to whether prima and seconda parts within madrigals should be treated as individual pieces or not. Personally I tend to treat them individually, which would make a total of 20 rather than 16 pieces. The reason behind this argument is that in the sources' indexes they appear to be individual, with a side-note (prima or seconda parte). I don't see why eliminate that, but then again I might be wrong.
• The last madrigal titled Queste fur già ninfe e pastori doesn't seem to exist in any of the available sources. I also haven't come across it in any recording whatsoever. Could this be an erroneous addition? --Chrysalifourfour (talk) 16:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the comments. A few thoughts:

• I believe the source used for the piece listing was the Nuovo Vogel (Bibliografia della Musica Italiana Vocale Profana Pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700) entry for the original 1594 edition. In terms of primary sources, the piece order matches the index given here. Only trouble there is that I have no idea what edition that is -- there is some major weirdness with the title pages (they claim to be the second book of madrigals, not the first).
• Piece numbering is something I've never been able to make up my mind about, so I could go in either direction. On the one hand, if you had a book of, say, string quartet reductions, would you consider each movement a separate piece, or as part of some bigger conceptual unit? On the other hand, it seems unlikely that madrigal sets would have originally been conceived as being as unseparable as multi-movement works are today. So I'm not sure where I stand. Any idea if there is a standard for this in the musicological field?
• You're right about "Queste fur già" -- it does not appear in any of the editions that are online, and I could see it just being a mistake in the Nuovo Vogel, especially since I can't find any mention of any such piece anywhere online. It looks like it might just be a corruption of the text of another piece in the book, "Questi leggiadri odorosetti fiori":

Questi leggiadri odorosetti fiori

fur già ninfe e pastori

ed or de’ miei pensieri

etc.

I'll take it out. Thanks!

-- Wboyle (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)